Grace
by SomewhereApart
Summary: When Regina realizes she's pregnant, she waits two more days before she finally musters the courage to take a pregnancy test, and three more days after that to tell Robin.


When Regina realizes she's pregnant, she waits two more days before she finally musters the courage to take a pregnancy test, and three more days after that to tell Robin. It's not that she's terrified (which she is), or worried whether this is something he even wants (which she is), it's more that this isn't the first time she's been pregnant (it's nearly impossible to make it through years of marriage and the Enchanted Forest's lack of proper contraceptives without a pregnancy or two), it's just the first time she hasn't chased the realization with a swirling grey potion that brings on three days of high fever and chills, aching cramped muscles and vomiting, and finally, in the end, a quietly aborted child. She's been pregnant before, but this is the first time she's come to the realization without a sick curl of dread in her belly, the first time she hasn't immediately rushed to end it.

She wants a few days to just relish the secret - not to guard it for her own safety, not to bear it as the silent burden of a woman who doesn't love the King who shares her bed, a woman who wants vengeance more than children. But to hold it close to her heart, to watch her lover and her sons (because they're both hers now, those boys, as far as she's concerned - she tucks them both in, and kisses both their heads, and makes them both eggs and too-sugared cereal in the mornings - when she's lucky enough to have Henry spend his nights at her house, anyway), and to know that inside of her she holds a secret that is going to change everything for them.

She hopes, hopes, hopes, quietly and fervently, that when she tells Robin she's carrying their child, he will be as cautiously thrilled as she is.

He isn't.

He's unabashedly ecstatic.

When she finally tells him, late one night in their kitchen, he gapes at her, comes perilously close to tears, and then his face splits into a grin that shines like the sun and he scoops her up, and hugs her tight, and spins her around and around and then settles her on her feet again and apologizes for jostling her. She assures him she's no worse for wear, and they kiss, and kiss, and his hand settles on her belly and stays there.

He grins for days. Days. They wait to tell the boys (because Regina is worried that years of snuffing out her pregnancies have rendered her body unstable, and miscarriage is a private pain she'd rather bear alone), and Roland is oblivious to his father's glee, but Henry is older and much more aware. He asks Robin one day, when Regina is just out of earshot in the other room. Why does he keep smiling at her for no reason; is there something going on that they're not telling him? Robin tells him that he's just senselessly in love with her, and that she doesn't know this yet, but he's going to propose soon, and he asks Henry for his secrecy and his blessing (which comes in a heartbeat, because Henry idolizes the man who teaches him how to handle a bow, and cheat at cards, and sweet talk that girl at school he's had eyes for lately). He's lying - Regina knows he's lying, because she knows that Robin must know she can hear all of this, and they've agreed to keep the baby a secret for now, and what other excuse could he have made?

But a week later, he takes her into the woods, on a long, ambling walk, telling her the fresh air would be good for her and the baby (she's been peaked and nauseous, lethargic and sickly - a stark point of contrast to his radiant good humor). She doesn't realize where they're headed, too focused on putting one foot in front of the other and overcoming the baby's insistence on sucking every ounce of energy from her bones, and all of a sudden they're sitting on a log where not too long ago (but oh so long ago, it feels), he had read a note that Rumplestiltskin had written about a child that was not her, and she had opened herself up and reached inside, yanked out her heart and asked him to guard it. He tells her that right here in this spot, she gave him her heart for the first time, and that he wants to spend the rest of his days protecting it, and her, and their family. And he tells her that he loves her senselessly, every little bit of her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, from her battered, dark heart to the light he sees inside her. He pulls out a ring - a gold band with a modest, square sapphire and two tiny rubies, and asks her to marry him.

She cries. Weeps, more accurately, and blames the hormones, curses them internally as she gives a speechless nod and holds out a shaking hand, and lets him slide the ring onto the appropriate finger. It fits like a dream.

The wedding is small, and intimate. His Merry Men, and the Charmings and Emma, and their sons. Regina refuses to wear white - both because she's carrying the tangible proof of their lack of restraint in her belly (not that they've told anyone yet), and because her first wedding was lavish, and white, and everything proper and Robin is quiet, and clear, and everything truly good, and she doesn't want one to emulate the other. So instead, she wears blue. Deep and calm, simple, soft cotton that flows over her figure and down to the floor. She complains that the dress makes her look pregnant - but insists she loves it anyway - when really being pregnant is what makes her look pregnant, and the first one to catch on is Emma Swan, who just so happens to come into the room while Regina is dressing. And as Regina pulls the dress over her head, lets the fabric fall, Emma spies the small, but undeniable, curve of her belly, and smirks - but says nothing.

It isn't until two weeks later, when Roland comes barreling into brunch at Granny's, announcing to anyone and everyone who will listen that he is going to be a big brother, that Emma fesses up and tells Regina she's known for a fortnight. Snow's jaw drops, and she's deeply offended that Emma kept Regina's secret from her, but also wondrously elated that finally, finally this woman who was supposed to be her mother but ended up her foe has found the happiness Snow always believed she so truly deserved. The women in the restaurant descend on Regina, chattering like magpies, asking how she's feeling, about morning sickness and sore breasts, comparing stories of their own first trimesters, and assuring her that she's out of the woods now - this second phase of pregnancy is smooth sailing. She feels out of place, here in the center, the hub around which everyone's happy curiosity flows. She eyes Robin at the counter, surrounded by men and whisky and hearty congratulations and is jealous.

But they're right, all those nosy, insistent women. The middle third of pregnancy is like a dream. The baby flutters and kicks inside her, and Robin can't keep his hands off her. He thrills at every jolt he feels against her belly, tells her how envious he is that she already gets to hold the child, that she gets nine whole months of their baby to herself. And at night, those hands wander to all sorts of delicious places, her body sensitive to every caress and every kiss, and the sex has never been better. He tells her constantly how beautiful she is, shows her with every fervent encounter in a nearly public place (he insists he has to have her now, right now, in her office, in the Charmings' bathroom one evening when they've been invited for dinner, in the kitchen while their boys watch TV in the next room), and she feels like a goddess. Like some sort of idol to fertility and womanhood and everything about being female that is great, and strong, and to be revered.

Robin goes with her to every doctor appointment, and when the doctor passes an ultrasound wand through the thick, cold gel on her belly, and the grainy, black-and-white image of their baby wiggles and sucks its thumb, he stares in awe. He's so glad they're doing this here, in this realm, he tells her. He's been through pregnancy once, in a land without these technological marvels, and the idea - the very thought - that he can watch as the heart of their baby beats, beats, beats in her belly is beyond anything he could have imagined. She tells him to wait until the 4D, that he has no idea, and when the day comes that he can look at the distinct, sepia picture of their baby, trace the shape of its lips and marvel that it has her nose and his chin - all before the kid has even tipped it's head toward the birth canal - she thinks he might simply fall over from the wonder of it all.

They've decided to keep the sex a secret, a delivery surprise, a relic of the mystery of creating life in the Enchanted Forest, but as always, life has other plans for them than they have for themselves, and midway through the 4D ultrasound, the baby moves suddenly, and they catch a glimpse they hadn't intended. There is a distinct lack of a penis, and Regina claps a hand over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes, and Robin can't tell if she's elated or upset. He's thrilled, overjoyed, a little girl to complement their two strong boys, but when she finally drops her hand, Regina's smile doesn't reach her eyes, and she's quiet the whole ride home.

The rest of her pregnancy is moody and sullen. Her belly is round and uncomfortable, her skin itchy as it stretches to accommodate their growing daughter. Her temper flares more frequently now, triggered by backaches, and sleepless nights, and blackened toast at breakfast. Chirping crickets, branches clacking against the window during a thunderstorm, damp towels left on the bathroom floor. All are likely to send her into a fit of biting fury. Robin tries to navigate her moods, to steer her toward the sunny moments, and Henry makes himself scarce, spending more and more time at Emma's when Regina's foul moods are particularly stormy. It's Roland who takes the unexpected brunt of the punishment, his sticky fingers on the cupboards, his carelessly spilled drink at dinner, his muddy footprints in the foyer. The day he accidentally drops a heavy carton of juice he's trying ever-so-helpfully to carry to the fridge - and cries big, fat, sorrowful tears before she even has a chance to snap at him - she falls to her knees (or rather braces against the counter and lowers herself carefully - the ups and downs are harder for her body these days) in front of him, and shushes him, hugging him tight and kissing his cheeks, and apologizing, apologizing, apologizing. She promises to be better - to try harder not to be so cruel.

Then she shuts herself in the bedroom and cries for hours. Robin is content to let her wallow in her guilt for a little while - the first half hour or so - because he's resented her temper with their kids in recent weeks and he thinks she deserves to feel just a little bit bad. But when he passes by the bedroom an hour later and can still hear her quiet sobs, he thinks he should go to her. Thinks he should end it, talk her down the way he always has, and make her smile again. Twenty minutes later, he finally does. When he enters the bedroom, she's curled nearly fetal on the sheets, her face in a pillow. When she turns to look at him, her eyes are swollen and bloodshot, still leaking tears. Her nose is red and runny, and she chokes a dry, painful sob. Now he's the one who feels guilty, and he scoops her into his arms and asks her what's so bad about a girl anyway? Because she was happy before they knew, she was glowing and pleasant and wonderful before the day they saw their child was most definitely not a boy. He's been cursing the technology of this realm ever since.

She tells him, finally, that the only women of her family she's ever known were her, and Cora, and Zelena - wretched, all of them. And what if this baby ends up with the same terrible fate? What if their daughter is made miserable by her mother, what if she destroys her like Regina's own mother destroyed her girls? It's so preposterous that Robin almost laughs at her. But this, this fear, this gnawing, mood-darkening neurosis is so easy for him to dispel. He tells her he wishes he'd asked her sooner, so that he could remind her that she is nothing like her heartless mother, so that he could tell her again, for the millionth time how much good he sees in her, and he tells her that he knows - he is _certain_ that their child won't suffer the same cruel fate that she did. Regina turns pitiful eyes on him and asks how he could possibly know that, and he tells her simply that he knows because of her fear. That he knows without a doubt that she will never subject their child to suffering because she knows firsthand the damage it can do, and she is terrified of her own potential. But her potential is vast, limitless, and he's seen her choose light, and love, and wonder, and he has no doubt that when it comes to their child, she will choose those same, bright things.

She seems to believe him - or at the very least, she tries to - and he watches her make a conscious effort to be kinder, to smile more, to treat him and their boys with every ounce of love she can muster. She blossoms under her own care (and his own constant insistence that she is everything good and light and wonderful), and soon her every dark mood is justified.

By the time her water breaks, she is cursing pregnancy - not the baby, never the baby - but the sore joints and the complete inability to get comfortable at night. The gas, and the heartburn and the week straight of intermittent false labor. When her body finally gives the go-ahead, she is more than eager to get a move on. To pop this kid out and get her home to the pastel nursery they have so carefully created for her.

And then she hits active labor.

The pain is crippling, ungodly, and she'd be glad the boys weren't around to witness the terror she becomes in the grips of labor if she wasn't so busy trying to find new and inventive ways to curse Robin's very existence. She insists he's never touching her again, she berates him for ever having touched her at all. She swears up and down that as soon as this baby is out she is going to find a curse that will make him suffer through hours of this same godawful torment, so he can truly appreciate the hell she's going through on his behalf. He assures her that it will all be over soon, and that he knows how much pain she's in. She wants to kick him in the teeth, smack that encouraging smile right off of his face, and then it's time to push and all she wants is for everything to just stop. To end. To fall into a sleeping curse until this tiny body is expelled from her own, so long as she doesn't have to feel one more moment of excruciating pain.

And then all of a sudden, there's a baby in her arms. Ten perfect fingers, ten perfect toes, pink and wriggly and messy, with a thick head of dark hair. And all of a sudden, the pain is just a memory, a ghost that haunts her muscles, and she looks down at this impossibly beautiful child. Her daughter. A baby that is hers, and Robin's, and perfect, perfect, perfect, and she wonders in that moment how she ever dreamed she could hurt her. Regina would sooner die than let a drop of harm come to this flawless wonder. They're going to be just fine, she and this girl. She's going to give her every ounce of love she can eke out; every bit of tenderness Cora denied her, she will give to this sweet, precious girl tenfold. She vows to herself that there will never be a baby in any realm that is loved as much as this one.

They name her Grace, because grace is something she's come to learn from Robin. Because this is a baby born of change, and forgiveness, and a life turned from the darkness into the light of true love.

She is colicy.

She is not a good sleeper.

But she nurses like a champ, and in those first few weeks where Regina so often feels like maybe she was not cut out for another baby after all, those quiet moments are what saves her. Swaying in a rocking chair, her baby at her breast, sleepy and soothed and sated. They get through it together, she and Grace, that rocky beginning. And soon life regains its rhythm, a steady cycle of diapers and naps and lullabyes, of homework and dinner, and on the hard days, the trying days, she watches her husband with their children and draws her strength from him. From the way he slings his arm over Henry's shoulders and talks to him in hushed tones about his young romance, and the way he still scoops Roland up into running bear hugs just like he always has, and the exquisite gentleness he bestows upon Grace. He treats her like a treasure, croons to her whenever she cries, covers her chubby cheeks in kisses. And then he chomps at her belly and her knees and her armpits until she is a giggling, burbling, grinning mess.

Regina has never been happier.

Everything is right.

Perfect.

As it should be.

They have no more children - they simply see no need. They have two princes and a princess, and a house full of all the love it can hold. Those dark, vengeful days of ripping hearts and destroying lives are just a memory to her. She has no room for them in her heart anymore - her family has taken up every square inch.

She has been redeemed, she knows, and redemption is oh-so-sweet.


End file.
